


an offer of reassurance

by TrainRush



Series: Donut Hole AU [3]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Light Angst, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29708604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrainRush/pseuds/TrainRush
Summary: DAY 25: ALT 6: “don’t try to pin this on me”The Conductor and Hat Kid theorize a bit.—(or, alternatively, the Conductor accidentally reveals an anxiety of his to Hat Kid.)
Relationships: The Conductor & Hat Kid (A Hat in Time)
Series: Donut Hole AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156415
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	an offer of reassurance

**Author's Note:**

> au synopsis:
> 
> _ The AU begins when Hat Kid is defeated by DJ Grooves in the final phase of the Battle of Award 42. Facing the crowd of onlooking moon penguins, he smashes the Time Piece… and promptly disappears from their universe, breaking his promise to win back all the awards. What he leaves behind is an extremely unstable Time Rift — the last thing keeping him tethered to their universe. No one knows where he went. Hat Kid slowly recovers from her injuries with the help of the Conductor, but she is not quick enough to stop the Time Rift from collapsing and dooming their universe. _
> 
> _ When the Time Rift collapses and their universe becomes void, Hat Kid and the Conductor both wake up in an alternate timeline in which DJ Grooves never existed. They do not remember anything of the timeline they left. This alternate universe is simply their reality, and they believe it always has been. _
> 
> _ However, a day or two after (unknowingly) waking up in this alternate timeline, large, blurry memories of the Conductor’s begin to resurface inexplicably. Common among them all is a single person, yet he can’t quite place who it is. Every attempt to piece together the puzzle pulls a blank — it’s almost as if there’s an empty hole everywhere they appear. He is only able to draw a single conclusion: there should be an extra bird in his studio, but he can’t quite prove they were ever there to begin with. _

Unlike the typical bustle of Dead Bird Studio, Hat Kid’s room was calm and quiet. The low hum of the machinery and the quiet buzz of the dimmed overhead lights made for the perfect white noise as the Conductor rested his eyes laying on the child’s giant pillow pile. She had recently been letting him stay in her spaceship more often as they researched further into the reality split, and he was grateful for it. The change of scenery felt refreshing; he could finally get some rest. Hat Kid herself sat on her bed across the room, quietly flipping through the pages of a book.

All things considered, it was no surprise that gradually the Conductor became sleepier and sleepier as his thoughts began to blend into one. That was, until he heard a small sigh from Hat Kid that piqued his interest enough to bring him out of his drowsiness. Looking up from his place sleeping on the pillow pile, he noticed the young girl staring blankly at her wall, clearly contemplating something deeply. A clear contrast from her previous tranquil state. Sitting up groggily, the Conductor squinted at Hat Kid.

“Everything alright?”

Hat Kid clearly hadn’t expected to be questioned, and her expression was startled as she glanced back at the Conductor.

“H-huh? Oh, yeah.” She chuckled, but her laugh was nervous.

The Conductor wasn’t fooled, and his frown deepened. “Now, don’t lie to me. Something’s got you.”

The girl looked at him, then away, then down to the thick book in her lap that she’d previously been reading. The Conductor had assumed it had something to do with her research into the split in the universe, which made his concern grow deeper. Had she discovered something?

“It’s just…” she started, “sometimes I wonder  _ why _ this all… happened. Why this  _ person _ even left in the first place. Maybe something provoked them?”

Taken aback by the blunt nature of Hat Kid’s musings, the Conductor looked away. He’d been avoiding this conversation because he’d been asking himself the same question. 

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I think a lot about that too.” He shifted where he sat, uncomfortable.

“...You’ve been getting a lot of memories of them, so it’s safe to say you were pretty close to them when they were here, right?”

The Conductor flinched. “Don’t try to pin this on me!” he hissed.

“I wasn’t!” Hat Kid yelped, her eyes widening at the Conductor’s sudden outburst. “I was just thinking if you were close, maybe you’d know something about it…”

“But I don’t! So... so it couldn’t have had anything to do with me—“

“I wasn’t trying to say that,” Hat Kid said, watching the Conductor dubiously. “I was just wondering if we could recover any memories…”

When the latter looked away again, something clicked in Hat Kid’s mind. 

“You haven’t been blaming all this on yourself, have you?”

At first, the Conductor didn’t move. Then, after a couple long moments, he quietly put his head in his hands. 

Hat Kid looked away too, now. “It can’t have been your fault—“

“But what if it was? Sure, we were close, but in what way? What if we both hated each other?” He shook his head helplessly. Of course, he had hoped they were close in a good way, but his anxiety wouldn’t let the thought out of his mind.

“But those aren’t the memories you’re getting, right? If they’re only positive, then… wouldn’t your relationship have been, too?”

The Conductor kept his head in his hands for a minute before looking up at Hat Kid, almost distressed.

“I just get this weird feeling — every time I get a positive memory and I feel myself relive it, it feels… weirdly reluctant. Begrudging? It doesn’t feel genuine. It terrifies me. And I never get to see the aftermath of my memories. What if in that other reality, I snapped immediately after it happened? What if I hated them? What if  _ they _ hated  _ me?”  _ He began to shake slightly, overcome by the terror of uncertainty. He didn’t want them to hate him. At least, not in this reality.

Hat Kid frowned. “I highly doubt you hated them, with the way you feel about them now.”

“But what if I just… forgot the reason I hated them? What if they’re an awful person?” As he finished his last sentence, his voice faded away into uncertainty.

“With all the positive memories you have of them, they can’t have been an awful person.” Hat Kid straightened up where she sat, looking at the Conductor determinedly. “Look, if they were an awful person, you wouldn’t have been close to them in the first place. You’re good enough to stay away from those other kinds of people.

The Conductor nodded, but he even still wasn’t certain. He wanted so badly to believe that the two of them had been close in their previous reality. No, he  _ knew _ they were close. He just had this awful feeling, deep within him, that there was something wrong in their relationship. Were they always that friendly with each other? Had they fallen apart?

“I just…” the Conductor’s voice trailed off for a moment, with lingering hesitance. “I just wonder, sometimes, if the person left our reality because they hated me that much.”

Hat Kid’s eyes widened. “Where did you get that idea?” She shook her head. “You two were clearly very close. How could they have hated you so much that they used a Time Piece to escape your reality?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know.” The Conductor fidgeted with a pillowcase. “I just worry easily, that’s all.”

“Well,” Hat Kid said, rising from her bed and walking over to the pillow pile where the Conductor laid, “that’s just the thing! Sometimes we worry a lot about things that turn out to be completely baseless! And that’s okay.” She plopped down on a few pillows, stretching. “I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so!” Hat Kid beamed.

The Conductor laughed quietly, smiling at the small child before him. She really was the most optimistic person he knew.

“Thanks, lass.”


End file.
